Incidences of concussion injuries are on the rise amongst participant of such sports as hockey, football, etc. In professional sports, such as the National Hockey League (NHL), as hockey players progressively become bigger, stronger and faster, they become far more susceptible to injury than in the past, with concussions playing a more dominant role in the cause of long-term, debilitating injuries.
A concussion is a brain injury in which the brain moves inside the skull and collides with the protective bone as a result of an impact to the head. The concussion-causing impact is usually of a specific magnitude and location, meaning that not all head impacts cause concussions. Concussions are graded according to symptoms and range from Grade I (mild symptoms such as short-term confusion) to Grade III (loss of consciousness). Depending on the grade of severity, recovery period can last from a few days to a number of weeks.
Aside from the obvious human cost of having a person deal with a serious brain injury and all of the present and future health effects that it entails, there is also a business and financial cost associated with such an injury to a professional player's team as well as to the professional league as a whole. Furthermore, head injuries also have a cumulative effect on the brain, meaning the more concussions a player sustains, the worse off his present and future symptoms will be and the longer he/she will take to recover each time. Eventually, a player that has sustained numerous concussions may be forced to prematurely end his/her career.